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Boycott Sony Online Entertainment and Lucas Arts.

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 166 / 207
Date: November 22, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I have played Star Wars: Galaxies for 782 days according to the /getvet command. I have purchased all of the expansions out to date. I was considering creating a second account. As of 11-17-05 my account is cancelled. The New Game, also known as the Starter Kit, is the third version of SWG and it is riddled with bugs and incomplete. It is a far inferior product to its previous versions as well. The NG was released after being kept secret for an unknown period of time and allowing players only a two week notice of it being published. Even less time was devoted to it being tested by sources outside of SOE. Trials of Obi Wan and the NG were released in such a manner as to call into question SOE's and LA's ethics. As represented by the employees who post to the forums SOE and LA are uncarring, glib, and/or vastly out of touch with the player community.

Most of these are not new complaints. However, with the release of the NG these problems have escalted to such a degree that the game is no longer playable. While some are content to merely switch games I am not. Simply changing the direction of the flow of money to SOE and LA will not get their attention. I am boycotting all products created by Sony Online Entertainment and Lucas Arts. I encourage others to do the same.

I do not think my actions alone with effect SOE or LA one iota. In fact, I doubt anything will change their policies. The fan base for Star Wars and other properties is sufficiently numerous to mitigate any discontent portion. While some have predicted that the NG will cause the collapse of SWG I believe otherwise. It will lose many current players but those will be replaced by SOE's and LA's new target market. SOE and LA will later use the negative comments and future subscriptions numbers to prove that they were right all along and to dismiss anyone who opposes them as being knee jerk reactionaries who are against change just because they don't like change. Because most likely the next expansion will also bring a new version of SWG as SOE and LA attempt to copy whichever game is doing better then.

Use to be a good game.

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 138 / 180
Date: November 23, 2005
Author: Amazon User

This use to be a very good game full of depth. They just did a massive change to the game, hoping to get some of the market share from WoW. They tried to make it feel more "Star Warsy". What they did was tear it apart. It is no longer an RPG. It's also not a first person, or third person shooter. It really is nothing at all now. For anyone that has ever played a decent shooter, you'd laugh at just how bad this is. To speed up combat they just sped up the game. Animations look terrible now. Crafting and entertaining basicly has been taken out. They went from some 30 professions to 9 (7 if you take crafting and entertaining out). A major reason this game was so enjoyable was that you could do anything you want. Now, you're stuck into a profession darn near forever. You can't mix and match like you use to...ext.

This game lost a lot of players after the combat upgrade a few months ago. And, again they are leaving in droves. I see this game getting shut down by early next year. Don't put a lot of time (or any) into this game, it's about to go down the drain.

More misleading/deception from Sony.

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 29 / 33
Date: November 23, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Ever heard the phrase "the third time is the charm"? Well, that doesn't apply to SOE's handling of Star Wars as a MMORPG.

Sony Online Entertainment has essentially released Star Wars Galaxies three times already in just over a two year time span. Each time, they pushed the game out before it was ready; meaning, paying customers were forced to endure a game riddled with bugs, which should have still been going through beta testing, and relying on SOE's promises of future fixes. Fixes which in each previous incarnation often took over a year to materialize, if ever. Most did not.
SOE's record of managing this portion of one of the most famous franchises in history has been abysmal. They've had a steady track record of broken promises and poor customer support/relations throughout. Add to that the deceptive marketing of its most recent expansion, The Trials of Obi-Wan. Gamers were encouraged to purchase this item, only to learn 2 days later that the game as a whole would be changed completely in just 2 weeks; something that had not even been hinted at any time prior. In fact, the game had just undergone a complete revamping only 4-6 months ago. With this newest incarnation, some professions, which they had only a short time prior announced revamps for in order to fix what had been broken in them since the game's initial release, as well as to make them more interesting and fit more completely within the milieu, were going to be completely removed and negating some of the rewards within the expansion.

The "New Game Enhancements" are really just a dumbing down of the original game and converting it from a MMORPG into a first person shooter in order to try to market to the console gamers. One of the features that had made Star Wars Galaxies unique was your ability to pick & choose your skills according to how you wanted to play. Want to be a Jedi Musician? How about a Dancing Armorsmith? Or, if pure combat was your cup of tea, how about a Bounty Hunter Carbineer? All of these were possible in the old system. Even in the second, Combat-Upgrade, version. Not any longer, however.

Crafters in the game have had virtually all individuality removed from them. In the old system, the quality of the resources used in crafting an item could greatly enhance its capabilities. This is no longer true and any items purchased is virtually identical to any other, regardless of the quality of materials used. Another issue, prior to the original launch of Star Wars Galaxies in 2003, Weaponsmiths were promised by SOE that there would be no lootable weapons that would be able out perform crafted weapons; otherwise, why bother buying weapons from weaponsmiths when you could get a better one for free by doing some quest. That promise was broken with the release of named quality weapons (Exceptional, Legendary, etc) and weapons with had various sorts of Damage over Time properties (poisons, fire, disease). This led to a rush of players all trying to find what sort of creature/NPC dropped this sort of loot and then camping them in order to obtain these items.

In addition, all the quality items and resources people had spent 2+ years acquiring in order to provide the very best merchandise for other players to buy were just negated virtually overnight.

If you have a masochistic desire to be abused by a company with no concern for its customers issues, who regularly make/break promises, who force a broken product on you with the nebulous promises of fixes down the pike, then Star Wars Galaxies is for you

STAR WARS GALAXIES IS DEAD

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 27 / 30
Date: November 24, 2005
Author: Amazon User

First off let me say that I used to love this game. I played it for 2+ years.

NOT ANYMORE - THAT GAME IS DEAD AND BURIED

Before NGE (New Gaming Experiance), what they called it when they gutted the entire game and pushed a pre-Alpha to live, I liked being able to run around on the ground doing stuff, questing, hunting with friends, jumping into a ship to go into space to shoot down starships... I liked just hanging out with people in it and chatting, the player based economy... The wonderful multibranched tree profesion system that let you do a little of this and that and have fun, and drop the classes/profesions when you got tired of them and try new things...

All of that has been removed.

Most of the vitrolic reaction that you will see here is due to a monsterously botched "upgrade" that was done over strong objections, and pushed out to the live servers WAY before it was ready. The called this the "New Gaming Experiance" or "NGE".

Selling points on SWG these days include:

- A player economy taht has been ruined.
- Crafting that is now pointless.
- An unplayable level of bugs.
- Went from 30 professions down to 9.
- Years worth of in game work wiped away.
- Bad/non-existant quests and experiance to advance.
- Their custmer service is bad or non-existant.
- The interface is the worst I have ever seen.
- Even chatting with other people is now painfully hard.
(So much so people have left for this reason alone!)
- Consistantly good content is broken or removed.
- Your complaints will be at best ignored.
- The player comunity has been destoyed.
- They never have been good about fixing bugs.

Seriously, it is horrifingly bad now.

* There is more that I could say about the way this game has been run, and is being run that would be true and *REALLY* negitive. Amazon says I am not supposed to be spitefull so I will merely point you in the right direction:

Do not buy this game until you have checked out the forums on the official site, be advised that views that they don't agree with there are often deleted. Check out their posting guidelines and read between the lines. At least on person who worked for them in customer relations and actually told customers the truth and did not lie on command to us was FIRED for it.

Don't just take my word for it. Do a google search too on NGE and SWG. This game is ruined and SOE cannot be trusted to ever run a good MMORPG ever again.

I am *VERY* sad to make this review. I used to like this game, and it is not just because they made changes I am annoyed, but because they could not even get them working before forcing them on us. That all the unique and good things in the game were destroyed.

Not all MMORPG's are like this, so don't play this one. :(

Amazon sells many good MMORPG's might I sugest looking at one of the following instead:

World of Warcraft
City of Heros
City of Villians

When they come out:
Dungens and Dragons Online
Star Trek Online

- D

Destruction Of A Game

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 23 / 24
Date: November 22, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Never in my whole life have i seen a once loved MMORPG destroyed in such a way.The customer service from the people who make this game is the most dire i have ever seen.Be warned the game is not even finished and never has been you will be paying to play a broken beta that you will be basicly testing for the PS3
Xodust

Buyer Beware

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 26 / 29
Date: December 15, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Although Star Wars galaxies used to be one of the most immersive, complex and flexible MMO/RPG's ever made.... It is now really really poor. Not only is it no longer an RPG as much as it is a third-person shooter, it is a VERY LOW QUALITY game. This game is constantly undergoing hot-fixes to resolve bugs, the problem is that most of the fixes create more bugs. This game should still be in testing and development, not on store shelves.

I have been playing for 2 years, and in that time SOE and LucasArts have not just "updated" the game continuously, they have actually COMPLETELY CHANGED THE GAME ENGINE twice, with less than 2 weeks warning both times. Each time the changes are major and completely change the way the game mechanics operate and how the entire game works.

The latest changes reduced the number of playable professions from over 20 to 9. Before you could change profession at will without penalty and at your own pace. Under the new system the only way to leave a profession that you are not satisified with is to delete your character and start over from scratch again. This means you will lose all the items your previous character collected, badges earned and any trace of the character's identity. They have increased the number of combat difficulty levels from 80 to 90... but with the new game re-write the way you earn experience has changed and now you have little chance of progressing beyond level 35 for the foreseeable future. Amazingly, they are already talking about more major changes in the next few months that will again force current players to learn the game all over again.

If you don't believe me you should find a new player of the game and ask them, if they haven't quit already out of frustration. Believe me, I have played for a long time, and still do, and I can see with my own eyes that more and more people are quitting daily, veteran and new players alike. I have lost nearly all of my in-game friends in the last month, all because of LucasArts' poor marketing and terrible customer service.

So if you want to risk buying this and playing it, beware! If you like it, you should be prepared for the entire game to change some time in the next 6 to 8 months. I recommend new players to try a stable game like World of Warcraft, at least until LucasArts decides that the game if finally how they want it and they stop constantly changing it.

Huge Ripoff, HORRIBLE game.

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 27 / 31
Date: November 23, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I have been playing this game for about 2 years. But now, it's totally changed and is a total ripoff.

Don't buy it. Don't even think about it. Save that $15 or go buy WoW. This game is dead. They screwed their player base. Lied to them about where the game was headed and then basically told all of us to shove it when we said we were unhappy.

If you looked at the forums for this game, you would see how bad it is.

In a couple months, they'll close the doors on this game anyway. No reason to waste your money

Oops, they did it again!!

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 25 / 28
Date: January 12, 2006
Author: Amazon User

In it's original incarnation, Star Wars Galaxies was perhaps the most innovative, entertaining, challenging, and enthralling Massively-Multiplayer Online (MMO) game on the market. Now, it is one of the worst, because of the persistent lack of development and support, the absolutely horrendous customer service, and especially the sweeping changes that are sprung upon the playing community with little or no notice. There are also persistent rumors that Sony Online Entertainment (SOE), the agency who developed and runs the game, will lose the Star Wars license in the near future.

When originally created, Star Wars Galaxies (SWG) was very buggy but extremely impressive - the potential of the game was obvious to all. After a couple of years of updates and attempted balances, the developers decided a massive change was needed. This change fundamentally altered a significant proportion of the game, and is refered to as the Combat Upgrade (CU). The quesionable nature of the CU led a substantial number of long-time players to leave but did not alienate enough of the gaming population, the majority of whom adapted to the new rules. Many months later, the developers realized the CU had failed and decided again to make massive, game-experience altering changes. This second set is refered to as the New Game Enhancements (NGE), and while the jury is still out the number of players who have left SWG has been substantial. When the persistent customer service issues, the ignoring the requests of the player base, the failure to address known bugs, etc., the NGE may very well be the straw that breaks the camel's back.

First, the good: this game has a lot of the Star Wars feel to it. The Galactic Civil War, which pits the Empire against the Rebellion, has often been an integral part of the game. The player-controlled economy is unparalled - I've played several MMOs and found nothing that comes close to the complexity and richness of the SWG economy. Jedi were uncommon as not just anyone could be one - prior to NGE, the path has Jedi was varied, but always required a huge time investment. While the game did not adhere well to the timeline established in the movies (it takes place between Episodes 4, A New Hope, and 5, The Empire Strikes Back) this was not generally perceived to be a major flaw. Additionally, the game offered an impressively varied number of professions that could be mixed and matched to suit the player.

As of the NGE (the SWG: Starter Kit is NGE), this has all changed, and largely for the worse. While the game was difficult to learn because of the tremendous variety of things one needed to know, that was also perhaps its greatest asset. This complexity is now gone - except for level, everyone and everything (weapons, armor, etc) is no better or worse than any other. The game is simple beyond belief, especially in comparison to the preceding incarnations. The economy is in shambles and the cities are empty - no one is playing it anymore. Many of the most interesting professions have been removed, and if not they've been greatly simplified. And, worst of all, anyone can be a Jedi from the moment they log on. The game is still very, very buggy, some of the well-known ones even persisting to this day from the games launch, which will tell you how well SOE addresses such.

If you want to be a Jedi in the Star Wars universe, this game may be for you. You can be one - just like **everyone** else. If you like simple, thoughtless games, it may be for you. If you like games in which the developers ignore your wishes, you'll like this one. If you like seeing the same bugs week after week, month after month, year after year, you will appreciate this game like no other.

The worst part of SWG is that it was a wonderful game - if the CU hadn't happened, or at least had happened differently, this could still be the #1 MMO on the market. Buy it at your own risk.

Star wars galaxies: An empire let down.

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 23 / 25
Date: November 23, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I am a veteran of SWG-- I've played since release in june 03'. Sony Online ENtertainment and Lucasarts have ruined this game, they have made it worthless and a gigantic waste of time. They took everything that made this game unique and threw it into the blender with Lineage II, City of Villains, and World Of Warcraft, maybe a little Battlefront mixed in. I do NOT recomend buying this game unless you are 12 or under.

If you do not like being lied to this is not a game for you, Sony has lied to it's community for 2.5 years+ and is not reliable.

Do not waste your time on this game, there isn't even a star warsy feel to it.

Just not fun anymore....

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 19 / 19
Date: February 22, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Don't get me wrong, I was a huge SWG fan, but since the NGE its really really not worth your time. I'm sure there is a free trial to download somewhere so check that out, but take my advice and "Move along"

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